[byablue]

"If the top (richest + most attractive) 5% of the men have 4 wives each, they're shall we say "monopolizing" 20% of the women......blah, blah, blah."

God in heaven where am I? You could just as well apply your "thought" to pickup trucks.......which legalizing marriage to will probably be your only option.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"If the top (richest + most attractive) 5% of the men have 4 wives each, they're shall we say "monopolizing" 20% of the women......blah, blah, blah." God in heaven where am I? You could just as well apply your "thought" to pickup trucks.......which legalizing marriage to will probably be your only option.

I'm not quite sure I get your point (or you get mine.) This was supposed to be a "thought experiment." Pickup trucks and other vehicles can be manufactured in greater quantities to meet demand. Other vehicles can be chosen: vans, cars, panel trucks.

On the other hand, women cannot be manufactured in greater numbers; nor are there any other available marriage partners for men. That leaves huge numbers of men permanently unmarriageable. This has consequences beyond the individual.

I suspect that's why polygamy is such a social-ecology throwback. It's hard for societies to assimilate the energies of large numbers of mateless men constructively. In our own society, men who never marry are vastly overrepresented in prison; in Islamic societies they make up the bulk of the criminals, crazies, cannon-fodder.

Can we talk about this?